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As Ohio voters cast their ballots today for issues on abortion and legalizing marijuana, a new poll finds up to 37% of rural voters can be swayed by candidates' messaging and policy proposals. Affordable housing and the high cost of living remain top concerns among the 500 voters polled living in Ohio and nearly a dozen other states.
Dee Davis, president of the Center for Rural Strategies, said Democratic candidates with a populist messages would benefit from making their case to rural voters.
"That's a real opportunity to look at these policy areas and to talk to people not in the short term - 'I'm going to tell you this to get your vote tomorrow' - but in a longer kind of way, to create a discourse," Davis said.
A few months ago, Ohio voters rejected ballot measure that would have raised the threshold required to pass ballot measures that amend the state constitution from 50% to 60%.
Former President Donald Trump continues to have a stronghold with rural Americans, and expanded his share of the rural vote from 59% in 2016 to 65% in 2020, according to the Pew Research Center.
Celinda Lake, president of Lake Research Partners, the firm behind the poll, explained that rural voters overwhelmingly say they want politicians to create more manufacturing jobs instead of shipping them overseas. They also want lower prescription drug prices, so people don't have to choose between buying groceries or medication.
"The fact that we've come out of this really tough time, and CEOs are hoarding the wealth and the prosperity for themselves, and not sharing it with the people that actually produce that wealth and prosperity that they're shipping jobs massively overseas," Lake said.
More than 90% of voters polled said they support cracking down on price gouging by corporations and expanding access to high-speed internet. Some 66% view President Joe Biden unfavorably, while 48% view former President Donald Trump unfavorably.
